The new Visions of Mana demo opened my eyes to a 33-year-old JRPG series I've stupidly ignored my whole life, and now I don't know where to start

There's a new Visions of Mana demo out, and after playing it for a couple of hours, I realize what a fool I've been ignoring this beloved franchise my entire life.

I don't even have a good excuse for never playing a Mana game until now. I've known about the series, I've heard nothing but good things about it, and I'm a big fan of JRPGs and action-RPGs made by Japanese developers, but the Mana games have always inexplicably slipped right by my radar. I suppose it's fitting that in a year dominated by some of the best JRPGs released in recent memory, I discover a whole new franchise with several mainline installments, even more spinoffs, and modern remakes.

I won't even pretend to know fully what's going on Visions of Mana; the one criticism I have of the demo is that it just sort of thrusts you into the middle of everything without an explanation or tutorial to ease you into its systems. All I know is that it has a beautiful, vibrant open world that I'm genuinely curious to explore, a cast of colorful characters with their own unique abilities and spells, and a real-time party-based combat system that feels easy enough to learn but challenging to master. I'm reminded of when I fell in love with Dragon Quest after playing the brilliant Echoes of an Elusive Age and subsequently delighted in exploring all of the older games.

From a tactile perspective, Visions of Mana just feels good to play as well. I love that there's a double jump and air dash along with the sprint option to make traversal a little more interesting, and there's just enough weightiness and impact in both the melee combat and spellcasting.

Now that I know from firsthand experience that the Mana series bangs, my only problem is deciding how to start fixing my ignorance of the series. Do I do the obvious thing and start with the first game in the series, Final Fantasy Adventure on Game Boy? Or should I grab the Secret of Mana collection on Switch and start there? Would the 2020 entry Trials of Mana be a